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The Healers; an excerpt from La Relación by Álvar Núñez Cabeza
de Vaca (1542)

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In this excerpt from La Relación, published in
1542, the Spaniard Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca relates how he and several others
escaped their enslavement by an American Indian tribe on the upper Gulf Coast of
present-day United States. As they come upon another town of Indians, the Spaniards
are taken as faith healers and welcomed. Cabeza de Vaca and his compatriots—Andrés
Dorantes de Carranza, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, and
an enslaved Moroccan Berber named Esteban—were the only survivors of an expedition launched by Pánfilo de
Narváez in 1528. They journeyed from present-day Florida and through the
American Southeast, finally arriving in Mexico City in 1536.

Transcription from Original

TWO days after moving we recommended ourselves to God, Our
Lord, and fled, hoping that, although it was late in the season and the fruits of the
tunas [prickly pears] were giving out, by remaining in the field we might still get
over a good portion of the land. As we proceeded that day, in great fear lest the
Indians would follow us, we descried smoke, and, going towards it, reached the place
after sundown, where we found an Indian who, when he saw us coming, did not wait, but
ran

— page 99 —

away. We sent the negro after him, and as the Indian saw him
approach alone he waited. The negro told him that we were going in search of the
people that had raised the smoke. He answered that the dwellings were nearby and that
he would guide us, and we followed. He hurried ahead to tell of our coming. At sunset
we came in sight of the lodges, and two crossbow shots before reaching them met four
Indians waiting for us, and they received us well. We told them in the language of
the Mariames that we had come to see them. They appeared to
be pleased with our company and took us to their homes. They lodged Dorantes and the
negro at the house of a medicine man, and me and Castillo at that of another. These
Indians speak another language and are called Avavares. They
were those who used to fetch bows to ours and barter with them, and, although of
another nation and speech, they understand the idiom of those with whom we formerly
were and had arrived there on that very day with their lodges. Forthwith they offered
us many tunas, because they had heard of us and of

— page 100 —

how we cured and of the miracles Our Lord worked through us.
And surely, even if there had been no other tokens, it was wonderful how He prepared
the way for us through a country so scantily inhabited, causing us to meet people
where for a long time there had been none, saving us from so many dangers, not
permitting us to be killed, maintaining us through starvation and distress and moving
the hearts of the people to treat us well, as we shall tell further on.

ON the night we arrived there some Indians came to Castillo complaining that their
heads felt very sore and begging him for relief. As soon as he had made the sign of
the cross over them and recommended them to God, at that very moment the Indians said
that all the pain was gone. They went back to their abodes and brought us many tunas
and a piece of venison, something we did not know any more what it was, and as the
news spread that same night there came many other sick

— page 101 —

people for him to cure, and each brought a piece of venison,
and so many there were that we did not know where to store the meat. We thanked God
for His daily increasing mercy and kindness, and after they were all well they began
to dance and celebrate and feast until sunrise of the day following.

They celebrated our coming for three days, at the end of which we asked them about
the land further on, the people and the food that there might be obtained. They
replied there were plenty of tunas all through that country, but that the season was
over and nobody there, because all had gone to their abodes after gathering tunas;
also that the country was very cold and very few hides in it. Hearing this, and as
winter and cold weather were setting in, we determined to spend it with those
Indians. Five days after our arrival they left to get more tunas at a place where
people of a different nation and language lived, and having travelled five days,
suffering greatly from hunger, as on the way there were neither tunas nor any kind
of

— page 102 —

fruit, we came to a river, where we pitched our lodges.

As soon as we were settled we went out to hunt for the fruit of certain trees, which
are like spring bittervetch (orobus), and as through all that country there are no
trails, I lost too much time in hunting for them. The people returned without me, and
starting to rejoin them that night I went astray and got lost. It pleased God to let
me find a burning tree, by the fire of which I spent that very cold night, and in the
morning loaded myself with wood, took two burning sticks and continued my journey.
Thus I went on for five days, always with my firebrands and load of wood, so that in
case the fire went out where there was no timber, as in many parts there is none, I
always would have wherewith to make other torches and not be without firewood. It was
my only protection against the cold, for I went as naked as a new-born child. For the
night I used the following artifice:

I went to the brush in the timber near the rivers and stopped in it every evening
be-

— page 103 —

fore sunset. Then I scratched a hole in the ground and threw
in it much firewood from the numerous trees. I also picked up dry wood that had
fallen and built around the hole four fires crosswise, being very careful to stir
them from time to time. Of the long grass that grows there I made bundles, with which
I covered myself in that hole and so was protected from the night cold. But one night
fire fell on the straw with which I was covered, and while I was asleep in the hole
it began to burn so rapidly that, although I hurried out as quick as possible, I
still have marks on my hair from this dangerous accident. During all that time I did
not eat a mouthful, nor could I find anything to eat, and my feet, being bare, bled a
great deal. God had mercy upon me, that in all this time there was no norther;
otherwise I could not have survived.

At the end of five days I reached the shores of a river and there met my Indians.
They, as well as the Christians, had given me up for dead, thinking that perhaps some
snake had bitten me. They all were greatly pleased to see me, the Christians
especially,

— page 104 —

and told me that thus far they had wandered about famishing,
and therefore had not hunted for me, and that night they gave me of their tunas. On
the next day we left and went where we found a great many of that fruit with which
all appeased their hunger, and we gave many thanks to Our Lord, whose help to us
never failed.

EARLY the next day many Indians came and brought five people who were paralyzed and
very ill, and they came for Castillo to cure them. Every one of the patients offered
him his bow and arrows, which he accepted, and by sunset he made the sign of the
cross over each of the sick, recommending them to God, Our Lord, and we all prayed to
Him as well as we could to restore them to health. And He, seeing there was no other
way of getting those people to help us so that we might be saved from our miserable
existence, had mercy upon us, and in the morning all woke up well and hearty and went
away in such good health as if they never had had any

— page 105 —

ailment whatever. This caused them great admiration and moved
us to thanks to Our Lord and to greater faith in His goodness and the hope that He
would save us, guiding us to where we could serve Him. For myself I may say that I
always had full faith in His mercy and in that He would liberate me from captivity,
and always told my companions so.

When the Indians had gone and taken along those recently cured, we removed to others
that were eating tunas also, called Cultalchuches and Malicones, which speak a different language, and with them were
others, called Coayos and Susolas, and
on another side those called Atayos, who were at war with
the Susolas, and exchanging arrow shots with them every
day.

Nothing was talked about in this whole country but of the wonderful cures which God,
Our Lord, performed through us, and so they came from many places to be cured, and
after having been with us two days some Indians of the Susolas
begged Castillo to go and attend to a man who had been wounded, as well as to others
that were sick

— page 106 —

and among whom, they said, was one on the point of death.
Castillo was very timid, especially in difficult and dangerous cases, and always
afraid that his sins might interfere and prevent the cures from being effective.
Therefore the Indians told me to go and perform the cure. They liked me, remembering
that I had relieved them while they were out gathering nuts, for which they had given
us nuts and hides. This had happened at the time I was coming to join the Christians.
So I had to go, and Dorantes and Estevanico went with me.

When I came close to their ranches I saw that the dying man we had been called to
cure was dead, for there were many people around him weeping and his lodge was torn
down, which is a sign that the owner has died. I found the Indian with eyes upturned,
without pulse and with all the marks of lifelessness. At least so it seemed to me,
and Dorantes said the same. I removed a mat with which he was covered, and as best I
could prayed to Our Lord to restore his health, as well as that of all the others who
might be in need of it, and after having

— page 107 —

made the sign of the cross and breathed on him many times they
brought his bow and presented it to me, and a basket of ground tunas, and took me to
many others who were suffering from vertigo. They gave me two more baskets of tunas,
which I left to the Indians that had come with us. Then we returned to our
quarters.

Our Indians to whom I had given the tunas remained there, and at night returned
telling, that the dead man whom I attended to in their presence had resuscitated,
rising from his bed, had walked about, eaten and talked to them, and that all those
treated by me were well and in very good spirits. This caused great surprise and awe,
and all over the land nothing else was spoken of. All who heard it came to us that we
might cure them and bless their children, and when the Indians in our company (who
were the Cultalchulches) had to return to their country,
before parting they offered us all the tunas they had for their journey, not keeping
a single one, and gave us flint stones as long as one and a-half palms, with which
they cut

— page 108 —

and that are greatly prized among them. They begged us to
remember them and pray to God to keep them always healthy, which we promised to do,
and so they left, the happiest people upon earth, having given us the very best they
had.

We remained with the Avavares Indians for eight months,
according to our reckoning of the moons. During that time they came for us from many
places and said that verily we were children of the sun. Until then Dorantes and the
negro had not made any cures, but we found ourselves so pressed by the Indians coming
from all sides, that all of us had to become medicine men. I was the most daring and
reckless of all in undertaking cures. We never treated anyone that did not afterwards
say he was well, and they had such confidence in our skill as to believe that none of
them would die as long as we were among them.

These Indians and the ones we left behind told us a very strange tale. From their
account it may have occurred fifteen or sixteen years ago. They said there wandered
then about the country a man, whom they

— page 109 —

called "Bad Thing," of small stature and with a beard,
although they never could see his features clearly, and whenever he would approach
their dwellings their hair would stand on end and they began to tremble. In the
doorway of the lodge there would then appear a firebrand. That man thereupon came in
and took hold of anyone he chose, and with a sharp knife of flint, as broad as a hand
and two palms in length, he cut their side, and, thrusting his hand through the gash,
took out the entrails, cutting off a piece one palm long, which he threw into the
fire. Afterwards he made three cuts in one of the arms, the second one at the place
where people are usually bled, and twisted the arm, but reset it soon afterwards.
Then he placed his hands on the wounds, and they told us that they closed at once.
Many times he appeared among them while they were dancing, sometimes in the dress of
a woman and again as a man, and whenever he took a notion to do it he would seize the
hut or lodge, take it up into the air and come down with it again with a great crash.
They also told us how, many a time, they set food

— page 110 —

before him, but he never would partake of it, and when they
asked him where he came from and where he had his home, he pointed to a rent in the
earth and said his house was down below.31

We laughed very much at those stories, making fun of them, and then, seeing our
incredulity they brought to us many of those whom, they said, he had taken, and we
saw the scars of his slashes in the places and as they told. We told them he was a
demon and explained as best we could that if they would believe in God, Our Lord, and
be Christians like ourselves, they would not have to fear that man, nor would he come
and do such things unto them, and they might be sure that as long as we were in this
country he would not dare to appear again. At this they were greatly pleased and lost
much of their apprehension.

The same Indians told us they had seen the Asturian and Figueroa with other Indians
further along on the coast, which we

31There is no mention of this story in Oviedo. What may be the
basis for it is impossible to conjecture. It may have been a tradition, but
completely misunderstood, hence misreported, by the Spaniards.

— page 111 —

had named of the figs. All those people had no reckoning by
either sun or moon, nor do they count by months and years; they judge of the seasons
by the ripening of fruits, by the time when fish die and by the appearance of the
stars, in all of which they are very clever and expert. While with them we were
always well treated, although our food was never too plentiful, and we had to carry
our own water and wood. Their dwellings and their food are like those of the others,
but they are much more exposed to starvation, having neither maize nor acorns or
nuts. We always went about naked like they and covered ourselves at night with deer
skins.